Is the end of Google+ near ?

That day is vividly remembered till now. People were rushing here and there for invites asking acquaintances if they got any, Facebook seemed to be not ‘in’ for that moment. And there was a sense of excitement upon being amongst the first on this new platform. You must have got it till now; we are talking of Google+, the social networking site from Google whose primary aim was to compete with Facebook and emerge victorious. But it didn’t happen as expected for maybe this time, the folks at Mountain View, California were at mistake.

Google sacrificed Google Buzz for the sake of strengthening the hold of Google+ on the web. Or maybe it thought so. But as of now, the fire seems to have died. It was first branded as an outright copy of the Facebook UI and design. Later, it got embroiled in a controversy by deleting multiple accounts with no reason, including accounts of Google employees too. This was strange. And given the fact that there is hardly any social activity on Google+, users were forced to switch back to Facebook, who also convinced users that it is the better option by introducing video-chat through Skype which indeed works seamlessly.

The idea of Google+ by Vic Gundotra, the man behind the whole show was a pretty decent one. But there was one major problem: it was too late. And now, the user base of Google+ is on a downhill. Many have deleted accounts, others hardly checkin for months while some just prefer to stay away while boasting loyalty to Facebook. However, there were a few praises coming Google’s way regarding to concept of Circles and its clean UI. In fact, Facebook seems to have copied a few ideas from the UI pattern of Google+ (I strongly believe so).

But when the idea of competing with Facebook as the primary social networking site on the web comes in, its hard to say after all those efforts but yes, Google+ has failed in that.